Sermon for September 26, 2004 (17 Pentecost)
by The Rev. Susan Anslow Williams
(St. Luke’s Church)
particular focus on Luke 16:19-31
Two weeks ago, I had the good fortune to drive up to Buffalo for a five-hour
meeting. Now, probably most of you would not see this as good fortune.
Normally I wouldn’t, either, especially since it entailed spending the whole day
with a roomful of clergy! But in this case we were joined by the English
priest, writer and social activist Kenneth Leech, who has more than 20 titles
listed on Amazon.com alone (many of which, alas, are out of print). Those
titles range from his classic “Soul Friend: Spiritual Direction in the Modern
World”
to “A Practical Guide to the Drug Scene”
and “Drugs and Pastoral Care”.
Leech began the day by joking about how people either know him as a writer about
prayer or a writer about gritty social ministry; and that even the Church of
England invited him twice to serve on the same committee–as Ken Leech the
activist and Kenneth Leech the spiritual guru. (He wrote back as Kenneh to
decline due to schedule conflicts, but suggested that Ken’s calendar might be
more open). One focus of our time with Leech was a little book written back in
1961, which had been very formative for his life as a priest committed to social
ministry.
The book is called “The Church in the Back Streets,”
long out of print; but I asked for a copy and he kindly made sure I got a
xeroxed version. Much of the text is peculiar to the Church of England in the
1960s; but a lot sounded familiar to here and now. In particular, what
motivated Kenneth Leech was the need, a real urgency, for a church in an urban
setting to know and be known by its neighbors, the real men, women and
children who walk past its doors every day. The book’s author, Stanley Evans,
then the Canon of Southwark Cathedral, describes the Church of England with only
part of his tongue in his cheek:
“Constantly today we hear clergy expressing themselves about the people who live
in their parishes. They don’t come to church; they are selfish; they are only
concerned with what they can get; they are bound up with frivolity; they drink;
they gamble; they go away for the week-ends; they have no use for the Church.
The list of their short-comings and misdemeanors stretches out into infinity.
The Church Condescending has given birth to The Church
Indignant.”
The remedy, one which Ken Leech was trying to impress upon us, has not changed
since 1961 England: “We must like our parishioners, whoever they may be,
and treat them with enormous respect. We must be ready to learn from them. But
none of these things can we do unless we meet them.... “Unless there is real
decent human intercourse between the clergy and the churchgoers on the one side,
and the people of the district on the other, there is no hope. Before there is
any question of asking people to come to church or of purveying any of the goods
we have to offer, there must be real genuine meeting which is a two-sided
thing.”
Why am I going on about this? Not only because it was a bit of a thrill to meet
Kenneth Leech; and not only because our parish discernment report is nearly
finished, and part of discerning one’s future is knowing where one is. But
also, because our gospel today invites us into a consideration of neighborhood.
“There was a rich man,” Jesus begins his well-known parable, “who was dressed in
purple and fine linen, and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate
lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his
hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table...”
(Luke 16:19-20)
As the scene shifts from this world to the next, it is tempting to concentrate
on its portrayal of heaven and hell, and the great chasm that lies between. Or
the tidy reversal that seems to be predicted: If you’re rich in this world,
you’ll be burning in the next; if you’re poor in this world, just wait for that
pie in the sky. Jesus very rarely, if ever, preached the hereafter for its own
sake; and this is no exception. The problem with the rich man – who has
traditionally be called Dives, from the latin word for rich – Dives’ failing is
not that he is wealthy. There are quite a few wealthy heroes in the Bible –
good old Father Abraham among them, who had an impressive number of flocks,
herds and slaves. No, the Scriptures’ overall message is that wealth will
condemn you to eternal separation from God and the joy of the saints when you
fail to see life as a blessing meant to be shared; a gift from God that has
some strings attached. Those strings relate to one’s treatment of others,
particularly the poor.
The prophet Amos, in our first lesson, points out some of the troubles common in
his day, that have not exactly been eradicated: businessmen take advantage of
the needy and uneducated; shopkeepers want to open their doors on the Sabbath;
the rich take no notice of anything but their own comfort; and God is
not pleased. Amos reads the signs of his times, a disaster coming in the form
of the Assyrian Empire, waiting in the north to pounce upon an Israel that has
forgotten God and God’s commands for justice and mercy. Punishment is sure to
come.
In England in the 1960s the sign of the times was an empty church, or nearly
so. 30-40 parishioners in a bustling city – I dare say it’s gotten worse since
then. A church that failed to take heed of God’s commands for justice and mercy
would be punished by being deemed irrelevant; and eventually closed. When Ken
Leech first started ministry as a lay person in the East End of London, he
looked around his neighborhood and saw prostitutes and drug dealers. Later he
saw AIDS and homelessness. For him, prayer and action were and are linked
inextricably: you cannot seek a relationship with God, and ignore your
neighbor at the same time. So he started groundbreaking programs that have
become models for Christian action everywhere. Neither would Amos looking
around Israel in 700 BC, Jesus in first century Palestine, or can we,
Christians in Jamestown, New York. We cannot divorce action from spirituality;
if we do, we shall have some hell to pay. By refusing to notice others, the
rich Dives allowed his soul to shrink. By failing to share his many material
possessions, he set himself up for eternal separation from the source of all
blessings, God. We stay complacent about our own blessings at our peril. But
we cannot share them if we don’t know who is at our gate. Who is the Lazarus
asking for morsels, of physical and spiritual food?
Taking a page from Ken Leech’s talk to the clergy, I’d like ask you to be
the theologians for a moment, and to spend a few minutes thinking about this
question. First, imagine your route the church this morning. Focus on the last
part of your trip, the area that would be in walking distance from here. Whom
did you pass? (8: maybe early... weekdays?) What can you guess about them?
Now – here’s something radical – spend two minutes sharing your findings with
someone nearby who takes a different route to church. Compare notes
(10: jot them down) and we’ll share them in a moment.
Now, one more thing: think for a moment about how you individually, and we as a
congregation, might get to know these neighbors better, coming to recognize
their spiritual and physical hungers without being the Church Condescending or
the Church Indignant; so that in the near future we can do something in
response, and save our spiritual health as well as theirs. Jot down some
answers, would you please? and leave them for me after the service.
Let us pray:
Everliving God, whose will it is that all should come to you through your Son
Jesus Christ: Inspire our witness to him, that all may know the power of his
forgiveness and the hope of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
